Of Ice Cream and Late Night Strolls
by intotheyellowwoods
Summary: "That prat," Sirius groans, smacking a hand against his forehead. He knows what James is trying to do. In a few minutes' time, he'll be up in the dormitory, giggling with Remus and Peter about leaving Sirius with Marlene. That little git. / Sirius and James run into Marlene in the kitchens, and James decides to play matchmaker. From a tumblr prompt by midgetpottermills. Blackinnon.


**A/N: so this is from a prompt on tumblr from midgetpottermills. I liked it so much I had to write it. The prompt is included below, though I changed a few things.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters, plot lines or settings.**

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 _ **midgetpottermills said:**_

 _Hi, firstly your writings on Teddy and Victorie was amazing! Do you take headcannon suggestions? If so would you be willing to write up my headcannon on Blackinnon if you like it? Basically, Sirius sneaks down to the kitchens with James invisibility cloak to get Remus chocolate as the full moon is coming up. However, on the same night Marlene is sneaking to the kitchen to get Lilly ice-cream as she's on her period? Sirius and Marlene end up having to work together to avoid being caught by Filch?_

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" _McKinnon?_ "

Marlene spins away from the house elf to face Sirius and James, her golden hair haloing around her like a cloud ( _Ha_ , Sirius thinks inside his head before he can stop it. _McKinnon, an angel? When Knarls fly._ ) Sirius barely has time to catch the shocked widening of her eyes before she slaps her trademark smirk into place.

"Hello, boys," she drawls, raising an eyebrow at Sirius. James takes the unsupervised moment to stuff the Invisibility Cloak further into the pocket of his robes. "Fancy seeing the pair of you down here. Especially you, James. I was sure being Head Boy would've straightened you out."

"You can take the Head Boy out of the Marauder but you can't take the Marauder out of the Head Boy," James says cheerfully, grinning and giving her a small bow as several house elves rush up to them. Marlene just rolls her eyes at him; what with James being her—and Sirius'—Quidditch Captain, she's plenty used to James', er, _eccentricities_.

"McKinnon," Sirius says, nodding at her. He's not usually this abrupt. Really. It's just because they're on a Top Secret Moony Mission. (Totally has nothing to do with Marlene. Yep. Nothing at all.)

James turns away from them and leans down towards the elves, grinning brightly. "Hullo!" The elves all bow and beam back at him; James and Sirius have spent enough time down here to know most of the elves by name. "Do you think my friend and I can get some chocolate please?"

"Certainly, sir!" Nolkey, the elf at the front, tells him excitedly as the other elves hurry off to fill the order. Sirius grins at Nolkey over Marlene's shoulder; over the many years he's snuck down here for food, she'd sort of become his unofficial therapist. He'd trade Kreacher for her in a heartbeat. "Anything for you, sir!"

"So what brings you down here, McKinnon?" Sirius asks Marlene as James thanks the elves and straightens up, still grinning.

"Ran out of parties to crash," she says with only the barest trace of sarcasm, combing an errant hand through her long hair. It's a gesture startlingly close to James' famous "suave" move. (Sirius is just glad that James has stopped doing the hair-comb thing as of late, or Sirius would develop even more issues than he already has.) "And Lily, uh, wanted some ice cream, so I volunteered to get it."

Right on schedule, several house elves start to pick their way towards the group, carrying a massive bowl of ice-cream and a block of chocolate the size of Wormtail between them. As Sirius eyes the ice-cream, he wonders vaguely if Lily's grown an extra stomach or two since the last time he saw her. _Merlin_.

Marlene thanks the elves and takes the bowl from them, looking uncharacteristically awkward. After a few moments, James adopts a look of dawning comprehension as he attempts to stuff the mass of chocolate into his free pocket. "Ah," he says, nodding sagely. The look would be a lot more impressive if Sirius hadn't seen him use it yesterday to explain the mating habits of Flobberworms. "Ice cream. I _see_."

Sirius gives James his patented _what kind of illegal substances are you smoking, mate?_ look, but James just ignores him. "Well," he says lightly, a hint of a smirk dancing around his mouth. Alarm bells immediately go off in Sirius' head; he's seen that smirk enough times to know it means nothing but trouble. "I best be getting back to the dorm. Dear Remus gets antsy when he doesn't get his chocolate, the poor flower. I'll catch you at practice tomorrow, Marlene. Hope Lily feels better!"

And then he skips out the door and just leaves. _Leaves._ With the Map _and_ the Invisibility Cloak. Sirius swears he can even hear James cackle as the door swings shut behind him.

"That _prat_ ," Sirius groans, smacking a hand against his forehead. He knows what James is trying to do. In a few minutes' time, he'll be up in the dormitory, giggling with Remus and Peter about leaving Sirius with Marlene. That little _git_.

"Well now," Marlene says with clear amusement. "I'm not _that_ bad, am I?"

Sirius spares her a short glance. Marlene's definitely _not_ bad, but if there's anyone Sirius really doesn't want to be alone with (and also really, really does), it's her. "He had the Cloak," he tells her flatly, pushing his hair away from his face impatiently. _Damn it, Prongs._

"Do mine ears betray me? Is Sirius Black, notorious prankster and troublemaker, scared of going out past curfew without James' precious Invisibility Cloak?" Marlene gasps, smirking up at him. Other than the Marauders, she and Lily are the only ones who know about the Cloak—there'd been an unfortunate incident where Death Eaters had attacked Hogsmeade last Hogsmeade weekend, and Marlene had gotten seriously injured. He and Lily had had to run Marlene up to the Hospital Wing in the Cloak so they wouldn't get caught. If Sirius looked closely, he's sure he could still see the thick white scar peeking out from the collar of her robes.

"I am Sirius Black," he says with dignity. "I am scared of _nothing_."

Marlene snorts loudly. "OK, oh fearless leader," she says, linking her free arm through Sirius'. "Lead the way, then."

It's already past midnight, and if Filch catches them he'll surely skin them alive, but they don't really have any other options. "Whatever," Sirius says irritably, huffing. "Let's go."

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They don't even make it out of the basement before hearing footsteps.

Sirius curses and grabs Marlene's arm and pulls her into the space behind the tapestry of Wulfric the Weird just as the steps turn the corner. Both of them hold their breath as Filch walks closer and stops right in front of the tapestry they're hiding behind, almost hyperventilating with excitement. Sirius's heart rate quickens in time to the rattling breaths; while he's definitely no stranger to detentions, Marlene's only racked up a grand total of three during the course of her Hogwarts career. (And that's without considering the fact that being caught past curfew with a boy—especially one with a reputation like Sirius'—is going to reignite all the gossip that Marlene works so hard to get rid of. She may like to party, but a slag Marlene is not, and not many people at Hogwarts know enough about her to tell the difference.)

Five minutes later, Filch finally seems to realize that he isn't going to get the pleasure of catching students out of bed and continues his patrol, muttering under his breath disappointedly. As he walks away, Sirius distinctly hears him say, "we'll catch students somewhere else, my sweet, don't you worry…"

"I worry for that man's sanity," Sirius says conversationally as he and Marlene step out from behind the tapestry. He's not a cat person in general— _cats_ , ugh—but Mrs. Norris is definitely his least favourite.

"His love for that beast is slightly creepy," Marlene agrees, her face flushed. Somewhere between running for their lives and hiding behind the tapestry, her hair turned into a mess. She tries to fix it now, but it still looks thoroughly mussed up in the best way possible. Sirius has to look away from her. _Right. Common Room. Hurting Prongs. Right-o._

"To the Common Room, then, my dear lady?" he asks in his most posh voice, holding out his arm to Marlene. She takes it with a giggle—bad girl Marlene McKinnon bloody _giggled_ —and they set off again.

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They have to duck into an abandoned classroom to avoid Peeves on the third floor, and they almost have another run-in with Mrs. Norris on the sixth, so by the time they reach the Fat Lady's portrait, both of them are panting and breathless. Sometime—possibly during the second Mrs. Norris incident, they started holding hands, and Sirius really, really doesn't want to be the one to let go.

"Well," Marlene says after they've woken the Fat Lady up and she's grudgingly let them into Gryffindor Tower, looking down at the massive bowl of ice-cream. "I'd better get this up to Lily. Thank Merlin for Freezing Charms."

Sirius nods. There's a growing sense of disappointment somewhere near his stomach. Crazy as the last few minutes have been, he wishes they'd lasted a bit longer. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I'd better go wallop Prongs for leaving us there, too."

Marlene rolls her eyes, but she's smiling—not her usual smirk, but a genuine smile, soft and a little shy. This close up, the tough set of her eyes doesn't seem so harsh. "See you tomorrow, then," she whispers, her eyes latching onto his. Sirius' chest feels weird. She's, like, a foot away from him. He's close enough that he can see the freckles across her nose. Since when did Marlene have _freckles_?

"Yeah," he manages to say. "Tomorrow."

Marlene smiles, gives his hand a squeeze, and then lets go. Sirius watches in a daze as she turns away from him and walks up the girls' stairs, her hips swaying teasingly. _That dirty little minx_.

He gives himself two minutes to collect himself. By the time he starts up the stairs to the boy's dormitory, he's managed to almost completely get Marlene out of his head in favor of the many ways he can get Prongs back.

( _Almost_.)

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 **Thanks for reading!**

 **~Alex (aka dontforget2live) :) x**

 **(P.S. if you want to follow me on tumblr, my username is _alexofthewriterpeople_.)**


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